twinstalker

Answer: Brandon Winokur and Billy Amick Carnac: Who are two of an endless number of Twins prospects who have no chance of more than a cup of coffee in the majors. Listen, Mendez has statistics in the minors that indicate he will hit. The others don't. Maybe it's more fun thinking everybody has a chance. Mendez has a chance, though his running, throwing, and fielding limitations make him a pretty meh prospect. But he should ultimately be a tough out at the plate.

Such a ridiculous concept. Thinking the Twins could compete with the Brewers is like thinking the average kindergartener could compete with a top college student in Jeopardy. You think the little kid can just dress the same way and walk the same way and compete? No, there's a monstrous difference in intellectual abilities, in understanding the setting and environment of the world they're in. The Twins don't know what they don't know. This is why dark days are ahead for as long as it takes a new front office to establish itself over a number of years. The Twins don't understand what's going on. At least on the hitting side, and they're about to lose all their established pitchers. It's ugly..

Not sure what the fascination is with this guy. He hasn't shown anything. At some point one of these bad prospects on the Twins or elsewhere will defy the odds and suddenly get good out of nowhere. But you can be 99% on any player like this he won't ever be anything...despite hitting well in the Twins AA/AAA parks, Don't be fooled again.

Cholowsky,

Cholowsky. But I only see four?

Twins? Pirates? It's hard to put the Twins right there without the extended track record. It's really been two years vs three decades. That said, it didn't take this article to get me thinking about it.

Given that we don't really have one, I'm not sure what your beef is in this statement. Now, they just wasted a 1st rd pick on somebody playing SS, so if you'd gone that direction, I would understand.

Yeah, Baldelli was flawed. I have zero hope they'll hire someone better, though. Beyond that I have zero expectation that it will matter. We'll still somehow have people wondering why a guy with good minor league stats sucks.

Hard to believe Zebby wouldn't be in the rotation. I guarantee everyone would come after him and hope to get him cheaply.

It's a weird phenomenon. Offers in the following offseason ultimately can be better than at the trade deadline because the team offering up players can now include one or more guys they thought they needed to help them win. As for Boston, The Password is a no probably (K rate), Arias is interesting, Tolle is also interesting, though he's somewhat prone to the long ball. However, I heard it was just Garcia and Tolle and a lesser prospect. I highly doubt an offer of all three can be referred to as not "close," so I doubt Arias was in there. Somewhere this season I read a negative about Arias but cannot remember what it was (it was about his hitting). It would be advisable to check with other clubs.

I hate that idea, Seth. If it were my money, I'd certainly give it to to the young man. But you see, there are many of us sibling and cousins, and I don't feel right spending their money. But if that weren't the case, you can bet Bill Howland would get his shot with the Twins. Sincerely, JP

He's likely talking about lottery odds. Rockies and Nats are ineligible for a top ten pick. We'll find out about this intimately in a year or two.

How is Kyler Fedko the Twins #18 prospect? <researching> Oh, boy. Seriously, folks, this is a bad system for hitters. Jenkins and maybe no one else (Keaschall graduating) who will be a good MLB hitter. Probably no one else. You should see Milwaukee.

How is getting hit by a ball responsible for forearm tightness two innings later? I've got some swampland to sell you in Florida.

Good to see a pitcher or two who actually look like they could be promoted. Twins pitching development hasn't been a problem. Wonder how that throw-in to the Bader trade did.

Why would you lump Keaschall with the other three? He's nothing like them. It's all there in the minor league stats. In all my years studying prospects, I've found almost nobody who's defied their minor league stats (barring injury, cheating, etc). The issue is with us understanding what the stats say. Everyone can have a down period, but most Twins hitting "prospects" are terribly flawed and their struggles are indicative of who they are. Keaschall and Jenkins (to a greater degree) are consistently great at young ages in the minors, and I'm not merely talking about their slash lines. Their slash lines are great, but so were Julien's, Miranda's, and Lewis'. It's more about their weaknesses and magnitude of their weaknesses. If a minor leaguer has an issue, MLB pitchers will find it. Without fail. What you see from Lewis and Julien is the pitchers figuring out their weaknesses. Lewis is enough of an athlete (inc hand/eye) to possibly overcome his issues to an extent. Julien's problems are much worse, and in a few years he might figure out how to stick somewhere and be mediocre. Miranda was really mediocre at the more projectable levels, then broke out one year in the bandboxes of Twins AA and AAA. It was too big a breakout to dismiss that he had found something, but whatever he found he either lost or the pitchers discovered how to get his new self out. Again, at the Twins most projectable levels, Miranda didn't show anything. Keaschall's issues are minor in comparison to any of these guys. Jenkins' are even less. As far as I'm concerned the Twins only have two other hitters in the system with a chance, but: As I've said before, Culpepper and G. Gonzalez are two of the tougher hitters to figure out. Culpepper apparently struggles quite a bit with breaking balls, which will kill him. His strikeout rate is decent, but it's risen considerably throughout his AA. June/July 15.4% in 123 PA Aug/Sept 21.1% in 147 PA One of those, for his profile, projects MLB success, the other projects mediocrity, but right now both have sample size and other issues to keep conclusions murky. Gonzalez lacks athleticism, is poor defensively, has only modest power, and struggles with patience at times (his walk rate is complicated). Given all that, he's had a remarkable age 21 season, tempered by the easy hitting parks in the upper minors. He reminds of Miranda in some ways but showed hitting prowess at age 19. K rate is really good (but that was tru for Miranda also, who swung at everything and had great contact rates). Again, lots of mixed signals. Really, though, the biggest knock I have against Gonzalez is that he's only hit in big time hitters parks (A, AA, AAA), or, in the case of more pitching friendly A+, didn't hit until his third try at the level. My informal study of parks has me believing that parks not only affect slash lines but also K rates, so I often ignore these lines in the stats. In fact, for Colorado hitting prospects, I only look at AA Hartford to determine my projections. Gonzalez and Culpepper could easily get off to good MLB starts. It happens frequently with hitters who probably have very little chance of actually being good at the highest level. So these guys could fit into the Lewis, Julien, Miranda category. But right now I can't say whether they're going to struggle for long periods (or forever) like the others.

Many of us here seem to not really care what stats are important and which are not for regular minor leaguers. We want to look at misleading ones and those out of context (slash lines, usually). Well, if we like that, we'll really like DSL stats. In A through AAA (four levels), BB walk rate is important only to determine who can't take a walk and who takes too many walks. There is a range the BB% should be in, and if it's outside in either direction, that projects problems. Taking a walk for your minor league team helps your minor league team win, which is fine for the minors. It's meaningless toward projecting majors. Walk rate is a big deal in the majors, which I think fools people into thinking it's good for a prospect to have as high a walk rate as possible. It's not. High walk rates in the minors is indicative of passivity. Which brings us to DSL, where you and your brother and your brother's cousin are moving from the playgrounds to professional ball. To put it mildly, the ball leaving a DSL pitcher's hand has no idea where it's going. High walk rates mean nothing. The stats that matter for a DSL batters are K rate, exit velocity, and barrel %. Think of the kids you played baseball with when you started. Those one or two kids who stood out didn't strike out and hit the ball really hard. They certainly weren't taking walks, or if they were, they were intentional or balls thrown nowhere near the plate. For the 2024 DSL one player stood out over all others with his K rate and EV (though not launch angles, ergo barrels), and that was Jesus Made. We have no idea on EVs, but K rate is easy enough. Haritzon Castillo has the best K rate, doesn't walk too much, and slashes well enough to indicate his EVs are probably at least decent. He's probably your best Twins prospect in DSL, though I don't know if he's anything at all. BTW, 10 of the 15 batters for the DSL Twins had an OBP 128 points higher than their batting avg. Walks mean nothing in DSL. Castillo wasn't one of the ten, which is a good sign.

Minor league OBP is almost always misleading and often meaningless. Now find a six-game stretch to take that to the 100th degree. If we're going to talk about "hot," let's restrict it to stats that are used in projections. Projecting using OBP is a huge mistake, unless it's inverse.

You wouldn't have to trade for the sort of reliever Larnach would bring.

Zebby is coveted by every major league team.

Congratulations to Walker Jenkins, who, because Keaschall has exceeded rookie limits, is now the only real Twins hitting prospect. The prospect list: 1: Jenkins 2 thru P+1: Every pitcher in the Twins system (there are P of them, and I've decided to include Raya -- hey, I'd be pitching prospect for the Twins if I could throw hard and let them teach me a pitch that would work at the MLB level for a while before it crippled me, I'm already as good as Noah Davis. This group and its placement here is a compliment to Twins pitching development. P+2 thru P+4: K. Culpepper, G. Gonzalez, Tait (these are guys who have a legit chance of contributing in MLB, Tait maybe being the only one with a chance to be above average, though the probability is low) P+5 thru P+4+W: the weirdos, including Eeles, EmRod, other indy players and int'l signings we know nothing about. EmRod is included here because of tools and because they are diminishing rapidly. Also includes a couple of catchers. P+W+5 thru N: everybody else, notably including first rounders Sabato, DeBarge, and Houston. Twins continue to use early draft picks on guys who don't have a chance. There are N players in the system eligible for prospect lists.

Keaschall should be good. He just needs health, reps, and maybe an offseason of working really hard at it. He seems the type that would, though I have my doubts the staff is going to prioritize it. Under Kelly (and even Gardenhire) the team didn't accept poor fielding. While I disagreed with a good amount of the mythology surrounding it, the "Twins Way" was a real thing. Fielding, baserunning, and all fundamentals were requirements.

Anybody can be a major leaguer if you don't have standards. These are three very different guys. One is guaranteed to be a good player, probably a star of some sort. One is guaranteed to disappoint if you're naive enough to think he's going to be good. One is probably a below average player but does have some variation around that, hitting-wise.

From a talent standpoint, the Twins may in fact be the least relevant team. Maybe Rockies, Pirates, but they're exceptions proving the rule.

If our future is discussing Martin vs Roden, probably better to find something else to do with our summers.